Luke Timothy Johnson’s the Real Jesus

In Luke Timothy Johnson’s, The Real Jesus, he tries to discredit the Jesus Seminar. He also attempts to justify that the historical Jesus cannot be found because the New Testament was discredited and then Jesus can be molded into anything the scholars want to make him. He also stresses that the publicity of the Jesus Seminar makes it less reliable. Johnson makes good point in discrediting the Jesus Seminar and the books that scholars have written about him but does not make a convincing point that the New Testament is the way that Jesus should be interpreted.

Johnson discredits the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar showed itself unusually willing to involve the media (5). The media usually tries to show negative stories and things that cause people to become upset or give something for people to talk about. Since the Jesus Seminar was showing so much involvement in the media it seems like the Jesus Seminar is just trying to get people upset. With the headlines and the offense that would be taken with the media, it does not seem like the Seminar’s greatest intention is for the good of the Christian community.

The Jesus Seminar discredits a lot of Jesus’ quotes from the Gospels as not being the real Jesus. The color coded voting of what Jesus is saying is tough, and it is easy to discredit something that can is not easily proved one way or another. Also in the voting, Johnson discredits how they vote on what Jesus said is true and what was changed by the author of the gospels. The parable of the Good Samaritan was included in the red sayings, meaning it was an authentic saying from Jesus. It is difficult to see why this passage would be included when it is only in the Gospel of Luke, fairly long, and it fits with Luke’s purpose in that Gospel. This concludes that the Jesus Seminar although may make good points and can be to some extent accurate, the Jesus Seminar does have some fixed notion on what should go into what Jesus said and what should not (25-6).

Johnson goes on to discredit a lot of the books the scholars of the Jesus Seminar have written. For example, Borg’s book wanted to show that Jesus was not an eschatological character. His basis for this was unclear.